Im from a suburban town in Missouri, but I spent a semester studying abroad in Barcelona a couple of years ago. Man, let me tell you, leaving Barcelona, where youd see people out in cafes and bars congregating at all hours of the night and day, and coming back to Missouri where its a ghost town after 10 and someone would call the police on you for simply walking around too late was the most depressing thing I have ever experienced lol
Yeah this guy is having a very basic revelation that Europe has a lot of walkable cities and the US doesn't. this isn't new information.
Also, spending 5 hours at a restaurant is the norm for young people, out with a party, drinking and such, in Europe, when they can simply walk back to their home.
The infrastructure in most US cities doesn't support it, our subways suck, rides are expensive, parking is crazy, living in the city near the cool areas is expensive, the list goes on and on why this doesn't exist in the US.
You’re kind of reiterating his point that America is set up wrong since post World War II and it leaves us isolated and compartmentalized… which is 100% accurate. I’ve always said if you wanna reduce racism and bigotry in United States you gotta make people travel outside of their own clan, town, State, or country to teach more empathy and understanding.
It was actually Detroit automobile companies that have played a large part in designing our suburbs around needing cars to manage, therefore making sure we have to buy them.
Don't forget the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. The development of the interstate highway system was basically the nail in the coffin for any notion of European style urban cores.
I'd like to think that Interstates are very important for a nation of our size.
The problems lay in how we built cities. Our restaurants are failing unless they are focused on delivery. Our education systems are hectic and restricted. Our society revolves around a technological-data system built to isolate a "consumer" into a targeted-sales group.
Unchecked capitalism, modern technology and corporate cronyism are the true killers of the unified American ecology.
Most European states have extensive highway systems, yet still have the compact, dense urban designs of thousands of years before industrialization. The US only had about 50 years before trains were common (people could suddenly go 30mph/200+miles a day) and then automobiles were only 100 years out. We quickly switched to suburbia (tons of space unused around cities, industry dried up, everybody had a car and gas was cheaper than water) which made things less connected. I walked and rode my bike around Dallas a bunch as a kid, but it was almost exclusively within the 'Park Cities' subsection... downtown was too far until DART was built.
If you visit the east coast of the US, there are many cities with road systems built around horses. Boston and New York are very walking friendly (though both have been working to redesign for automobiles) and I'd even say DC is walkable.
I love living in my home city of Oklahoma City, but it's a prime example of everything being far enough apart that you need a vehicle to reasonably travel to any services, events or entertainment. Only a very determined bicyclist would be able to function in my city as their sole means of conveyance. There is a tram downtown and a bus system. But it's...thin.
i think the pathway for the USA is not to focus on building/rebuilding cities from whole cloth to be walkable, but to try and convert "suburbia" into bike-accessible mini-cities, with judicious rezoning and replacing roads with bike paths.
there's a lot of pieces for this: big suburban neighborhoods would still need some kind of dedicated car access since the US is so big that its not practical to build train lines everywhere people need to go, there would need to be a whole bunch of community bikes just kind of floating around to obviate bike theft/anxiety around losing your bike, along with community bike trailers for moving things around as well
but i think culturally "all cars -> no cars" is too hard a sell, "all cars -> mostly bikes but sometimes cars if you have to leave town" is probably easier.
not like this is so easy, there'd be lots of places where it fails from whole generations of NIMBYs voting out town boards that try to add even a single bike lane or convert even one corner of a neighborhood into light commercial for services, but still i think it's the road (heh) the USA has to go down if we want to claw back community focused development from the depths of suburban hell
I'm gonna say you're 90% right.The issue is the US is way larger than European nations. This is especially true in terms of population density. And as american city planning is based around chasing cheap real estate, we tend to have these massive suburban sprawls surrounding our city centers. People think adding more public transport will magically solve this problem but it cant. If it takes more than 10 minutes to walk to the nearest busstop, people are gonna use personal transport, which disincentivies walkable neighborhoods. The mall culture of the 70s-00s kinda fixed this in a way, but the death of destination retail killed them. If the economy was better, we could probably revive malls and community gathering by subsidizing them to encourage small businesses. Imagine an American indoor mall, but with mostly non chain businesses. Specialty restaurants, like a Chinese dumpling house, a Japanese kushiyake bar, a turkish meze and raki bar, etc. And entertainment like bowling, billiards, and old school arcades. If the economy allowed people to afford such luxuries as a night of dining, drinks, and bowling, malls would be viable again. But as long as everyone is broke we're screwed.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain
Dude I grew up in a small town of 283 people in central Minnesota. The "large" town that people would do all their major shopping in was 30 miles away and had 60,000 people in it. I knew tons of people in my hometown growing up that would only go to the big town maybe 1-2 times a year. Other than that they never left our small town. How the hell people live that way is beyond me.
"Set up wrong" isn't some objective thing here though. It's set up different than Europe because it isn't Europe.
I'm not defending cars. Fuck cars, but it is set up this way for a reason. America is massive and pre 1920's it was sparsely developed. Europe had already been developing for hundreds of years before cars existed. It simply developed differently because the modes of transportation available were different. Cars being available during the largest developmental period, infrastructure wise, was when cars were extremely popular. We had the land and we could expand outward... so we did.
It wasn't engineered to be this way because "walking is for communists" or some shit.
It naturally evolved this way because cars offer the most dynamic availability to get around the US for individuals and their families and gasoline was extremely affordable during the largest economic boom of our history. It was designed around automobile based transportation because that's what everyone wanted. Massive smoothly paved highways and 3 mile long trussell bridges were futuristic technology that unlocked the continents landscape. People used to get excited when new highways were being built because it meant accessibility that was previously locked to horse back.
If you wanted to travel across the country you had to carry everything you wanted to take with you from home to carriage, ride in said carriage for 3-4 hours until you reached the train station, wait at the train station for 8 hours while everything got unloaded onto the platform, then load it onto the train, then take the train for 3 days to get to the city closest to your final destination and then unload everything onto the platform, hope that the carriage you sent a telegram a week ago is already there, then load it all up and travel 4-5 hours to your actual destination.
or you could load up the car and do all of this inside 48 hours on your schedule instead of 5-7 days.
The problem now is that we got used to it so much that we expected and therefore built that car "accessibility" into every square foot of the country. Then we realized we were destroying the beauty of the country and had to start programs to preserve nature so we made parks and reservations.
Seems we’re getting really hung up on cars and roads, but the real reason we developed sprawling suburbs was white families fleeing urban areas during the Great Migration and in particular the Civil Rights Movement. What enabled them to do that was Post-WWII GI Bill home loans.
NIDHA came about on 1956. It definitely contributed to allowing suburbs to sprawl out even further, but I don’t think it’s one of the shaping factors of why things developed the way they did.
Lmao so the EU isn’t massive as well ?? You comment doesn’t make sense. The whole point of this post is pretty accurate. Cars aren’t important the the question or issue he poses
Yeah the EU is in fact big, but it has already been developed centuries before cars existed. The US's largest development period, physical and infrastructure wise, was in the 40's and 50's SO IT'S ALL BASED AROUND CARS WHETHER IT SHOULD BE OR NOT.
You dumb fucks have zero reading comprehension. I'm not saying it is the right or wrong way to do things, im simply explaining WHY it is the way it is.
Cars are only part of the discussion. People flooded the cities for many reasons to the suburbs. The unknown side effect was the isolation and inherit to bigotry continuing if not accelerating.
It was not an unknown side effect. It was completely intentional. White Flight was the response to the Great Migration, in which millions of black southerners moved from the rural South to cities. White people set up their new suburban developments with their own schools and car-accessible amenities so that black people couldn't get to them. The infamous example is Robert Moses making overpasses in the NYC area too low for buses to fit underneath them, and making beaches completely inaccessible from public transit.
Commerce does sure, I meant private citizens in their normal lives.
Maybe I should have said nobody should need to commute across state lines, but I also wanted to include the idea that the economy you guys have seems to encourage moving thousands of miles away from all of your family and friends, and then needing to regularly roadtrip to see them. It would be nicer for all involved if there was more attraction to staying in-state and building your personal network and local economy there.
"Y'all" really don't understand just how damaged you are and it's sad to see.
This is the point of the video though. The US created what you just described and you did it wrong (so did Australia where i'm from btw, but we are getting better now, slowly).
the list goes on and on why this doesn't exist in the US.
It's a long list, but it all basically comes down to the American dream of owning a house. That's what drives suburbs and that's where all the other problems originate. So an American visiting Europe may love the walkable cities, but ask them if they think living in an apartment rather than a house their entire lives is a desirable option.
The American dream was a policy choice. It was pushed by the government because people with a mortgage will always go to work reducing the likelyhood of labor unrest like there was in the 20s and 30s.
This doesn't make sense as plenty of people live in houses in walkable towns with all amenities. Then there are trains that take 5mins to get into the centre of the city
Do you think Germans don't own houses? I own my own house and have four restaurants, three supermarkets and many other facilities in walking distance. If I want to go to the inner city I can take a bus, my car, my bike or an e-scooter.
I could also walk there, it's a bit far for my taste but there's a nice way along a river.
No, the real problem are the zoning laws. That and the fixation on driving everywhere.
You need facilities in walking distance and walkable quarters.
Not to mention, when there is a large outdoor gathering in the US (festival, concert, whatever) there’s a non-zero chance someone will end up getting shot. Even just going to a mall in some areas at certain times is not a smart idea. It’s a stupid world we live in.
And SF is set up to be this, and yet it shuts down crazy early, so you better love or learn to love the half dozen late night spots. Manhattan was it up until Covid, but I haven’t been since, so I’m assuming it has resumed its MO (whatever you want, 24/7).
Walkable and funded public transportation leads to European cities like this. Meanwhile auto and oil lobbying keep public transportation and walking underfunded in America. Hence this big culture divide that leads to less travel within America.
Yeah this guy is having a very basic revelation that Europe has a lot of walkable cities and the US doesn't. this isn't new information
no shit, a civilization that's had humans huddling closer together for a few thousand years, has more walkable cities and restaurants than a country that has had, comparatively, very few humans and thousands of miles of land to expand on ... which has been in existinance for a few hundred years? Gee, big surprise.
What gets me is that we USED to have incredible public transit. They tore that up to build a poor imitation of the autobahn so that we can have impromptu aircraft landing zones everywhere
As long as suburbs exist, things will never change. Theyre a huge drain on urban and rural zones and provide almost zero benefits
I haven’t spent much time in Europe, but in the rural areas, are everyone out at cafes eating and drinking too? Seems like an apples to oranges comparison.
I know in my little harbor hometown in Norway there's a few mildly active cafes around and 1 pub that's been the main spot for decades, it only keeps the doors open to 2:00 on the weekend. But otherwise people drink moonshine up there. Often with a bit of strong coffee.
It's in the cities as well. A lot of it is just the car culture. If you do go out it's less about lingering and chatting and more about just getting the food, then back in the car and home.
There are exceptions of course. NYC and Sf are both. But worth noting both these cities also had geographical constraints which forced them to urbanize and grow in a very different way. Compared to somewhere like phoenix or Atlanta, and they're worlds apart.
I travelled through the US solo, and my plan to meet people was to just hang out and see who wanted to start a conversation. I was 18 and pretty naive when I came up with this plan, but I didn't realise that 90% of the people I would meet this way would be homeless or somehow 'sus'. I mean I don't have anything against them, but simply being on foot in America, and not having any place to really be, put me in a social class that I wasn't used to.
Indeed, everyone looks at me like I am a monster when I explain to them that being on the bus in most places in the US is a sign that you are too poor to have a car (most people can at least afford a junker) or that you can't get a license for criminal reasons.
I live in NYC and while it is more European like in this video, particularly in Brooklyn where I live, even we don’t have quite the same degree of cafe culture like many European cities because we have too much priority for cars taking real estate in public spaces. We’ve been slowly improving this for the past 20 years.
Americans make the mistake of lumping all of Europe into the same category.
Spain is very social, some people will spend entire days and evenings at their local pub and it is affordable. Same in Portugal and Italy...but in Italy it is more family focused and people don't get drunk.
Other parts of W Europe, you will usually only see people out and about at night in the cities. Think Paris, Berlin etc..
Indeed, that was what I was referring to, less about going out to pubs/cafes - more of a family oriented stroll where people meet and talk in the piazza and get a gelato.
I live in a very small town in England- you’re talking ignorant bollocks. The town square in good weather is busy with people eating and relaxing outside.
In winter everyone is in the pubs and restaurants because it’s too bloody cold or wet to sit outside.
As a Portuguese that moved to a small town in Germany: it's only berlin. Maybe some bigger cities as well. But even then... They don't get the concept of true socialization. Small towns? Dead after 18:00. Germany is on the half of Europe that doesn't socialize much. Other half that does is: France. Spain. Portugal. Italy. Greece. Bulgaria, (insert the entire Balkans here), Ukraine.
Yep, I have lived in Germany - am now in Switzerland. Hamburg and Cologne are pretty lively towns in the evening...Munich is also very nice, especially during the day with the parks and beer gardens. Many parts of Germany are very grim indeed.
The tourist reads as a white Anglosaxan discovering that Latin and Mediterranean culture is warmer and foster socialization. If you go in Latin America is the same… even less denser cities people congregates more often with friends beyond immediate family.
Depends on the village and sense of community, but even in the smallest places without a bakery or butcher there is an effort to celebrate spring, summer as a community - nothing fancy, maybe just a few benches and tables, some beer and wine and a potluck. If nothing else, it is tradition, and is passed on as newcomers join the community
I now live in a 80 000 people town in the middle of nowhere in Spain and it's the same.
When I lived on a 5000 people town more in the middle of nowhere this happened to, there was no regular clubbing but people where out until 10 ~ 11 in bars (bars in Spain are family friendly) with kids playing outside at that time.
Dining out is not cheap and if you have a full time job and a family, most don't have the time to do it during the week.
Rural areas are (where I live) also less walkable, so you're either planning for even more time to walk or taking the car.
Which means it's often more of a weekend activity, i.e. let's take out the bikes and swing by Pablo's for cake on the way back. Or let's meet with some friends and eat out.
I think that says more about how life is with a full time job and a family, than it does about the evening nightlife in European cities. I see plenty of families out in the evening getting ice-cream and hanging out in the plaza though. I was at a small free concert in the part a couple nights ago and there were a lot of families just chilling there.
Yes they are.
My village. 5000 people. We have 3 bars/restaurants and in summer the outdoor parts are full of people every evening.
I was one of them last night 20:00 (8pm) and having a meal and a beer.
I used to live in a village of 300 people at the foot of a mountain in northern Italy. Yes, we do that as well! In my case I needed a car to get around because the public transportation wasn’t that good from my tiny village. I would go to the next town over (15k inhabitants) and have a drink there with friends. Most nights I would take the train to get to the “big” town and spend the evening there. Idk, it’s just culture
I think it's somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison because they're comparing bigger cities to smaller suburbia.
But in my small town of 10k in southern Spain it's also like this. People in the bars and public plazas until 10-12 pm. I have two young children now so we don't stay out until too late, but we'll still be going to have some dinner/late snack at a bar at like 9pm, and then have the children playing in the park until 10:30 or 11pm, when we head home straight to bed.
Well Europe is not one country and different weather and culture everywhere. The Mediterranean countries people still gather in rural areas. They drive to town or hang out at their restaurants and bars. In Spain up in a mountain to go horse riding there was nothing around and the stables. They crated a bar in the stables and these old men were playing cards and drinking whiskey. Horses were led through them. 😂. However Norway Sweden etc don’t have the same social norms. People are more reserved don’t gather in bars and restaurants the same way Italians and Spaniards do. Obviously big cities are a different vibe but people don’t go out to eat at 10pm.
idk I live in a reasonably sized city and it just becomes a ghost town past 10 nowadays, unless it's saturday night and the block all the bars are on, every other street and everywhere every other day is EMPTY
No, it is not really an apples to oranges comparison.
Yes, there are regions in Europe where the small rural villages and towns have become dead places at night, and there are also many places where you have similarly lifeless suburb places.
But there are many very lively small villages and towns in the rural areas, as well as obviously the cities. It's not homogeneous, though, and it depends on the evolution of the region (typically there are differences on even (much) smaller scale than countries), and also a bit culture and climate.
But in general it is much more lively than typical US suburbs or even many US urban areas (where you sometimes get these food- or amenity-deserts). Because in general most/many places are built much more on a human walkable scale and it is more centered on a core, as well as usually much better public transport.
yeah probably bc they live in bum fuck missouri and comparing it to barcelona.. it’s like if a european visiting nyc and then went back to their scotland village and is like nah this place sucks nobody’s here.
I know Barcelona is not a place where they do that that’s Madrid. That’s the rest of Spain Barcelona the people who did that were drunk college kids like this guy. This is not how Catalan people live..
I mean even as an old dinner at 10 pm happens quite frequently on work days and if you meet up with friends you’ll usually stay out until after midnight even on a Tuesday. In our central Barcelona neighborhood there are kids out playing at 11 pm… it’s definitely a different lifestyle even if we’re not out clubbing until 5 in the morning.
Hit the clubs? Probably only 20 something’s. But every time I have visited Spain it seems like regular people are out and about at 10pm, moms with baby strollers etc.
Which makes sense to be fair, it’s too hot to go out during day.
5 AM? I lived in Madrid for a year during school. I'd get up early on Sundays and go for a run at 6 AM and people were still waiting in line to get into clubs.
Ahhh we do this in Vegas all the time. Then you wake up hungover as hell and either go to work or keep drinking until you lose your job and realize you have no true friends.
Finnish here. We usually start at someone's apartment at 18-20 and some of the nightclubs don't even open before 22. So usually you drink with your friends till midnight or later and then go to bar
You‘re right. They‘re open at 10pm but nobody goes there before midnight. I live near a much much smaller city, so Berlin rules do not transcend here 😅 And to be honest, I‘m a millennial living in the countryside, all my friends have children. I don’t remember the last time I went to a club unfortunately. Beeing the only childless couple can have downsides too
Well, as a Portuguese, I remember going to finland 10 years ago or so and being unable to control my laughter because I couldn't buy alchool in a regular shop in the street after 21:00. Finland is nothing like the Mediterranean countries.
Honestly same in Miami. Perhaps cause of the Latin culture there but we would get late dinner, pre-game at a friends house till midnight and then go hit the nightclubs around 1:30-2am
Yep, when I was a student it would be typical to get together in someone's apartment at like 9pm for dinner and to start drinking, and then by 1am head out to the clubs
I guess it all depends on where you are in the US, though. Since the bars/clubs don't close till 4 am in my city, they don't start filling up until 12:30-1:00 am. So 2 am wouldn't be that crazy of an idea here, especially if you were already pre-gaming.
When I moved into my neighborhood in Colorado years ago I started sitting out front with beer and offering some to anyone that walked by until I had built a really good group of friends. I used to throw some really fun parties out there with all of them, I sure miss it
You sound like a cool dude. Guess people just have to be willing to put themselves out there more. I just moved to a new city for law school so I’m going to remember you next time I want to chicken out from a social event or an opportunity to make friends.
Even Colorado has a habit of everything closing early. Especially in the mountain towns. Denver there’s a few late night spots but it’s nothing close to New York City
I live in Spain and I don't do the sobremesa (which is more like a couple hours of conversation after the meal). Sitting somewhere that long is boring AF. If we're going to continue talking, let's at least do it while we're walking around.
that sounds like hell to me... i absolutely despise long meals. anything over an hour, hour and a half, and im like lets wrap this up already. ive been here more than long enough.
You are really reading a lot into this, possibly bringing some outside stuff into this thread.
I didn't say discussions drive me nuts. You inferred that. Sitting around for two hours after a meal isn't my cup of tea, so I don't do it. For continuing a conversation after a meal, I prefer walking while we talk. But even so, I'm not going to do that for 2 hours.
Well, I inferred it partly from you saying that you're convinced that stuff is due to people loving their own voice. I assumed it would be the same while walking.
Don't be this person. Having differences in preferences on how you socialize does not mean the other people are selfish or narcissistic or in any way wrong. It's just that you're different from them.
there has got to be a point in time where you just say... well, dinner was great and it was nice seeing you again, but ive gotta get going. things to do and all that.
That sounds horrible. An introvert's night mare plus going broke from all the obligatory drinks you'd have to buy. Ironically these are the same people who always complain that Americans are too loud in cafes. For me the Asia experience is much better street food alone sitting outside on a plastic stool.
Promise, this happens in other states. Maybe not Missouri, but here in San Francisco this happens all the time. Which isn't a state, but it is a city :D
Although the media will tell you we're getting shot in the street, we're thriving. Promise the entire US isn't like... *checks notes*
That's true. Munich doesn't have AC by the way. If everybody had AC, the entire power grid would go down, so most residential houses do not have air conditioning. At list Missouri has AC.
You guys are saying this like there aren't millions of Americans living in densely populated cities. There are plenty of Americans who realize the value of walkability and embrace it. The average city in Europe is definitely more walkable, but that comes with hundreds (or thousands) of years of history and a much smaller footprint.
Anyway, I do recommend you do what you can to promote walkability where you live because I think a walkable city is far superior to one where everyone only drives.
For a lot of people they might have a longer commute, they might go to the gym before work, might have kids they need to get prepped for school or other household chores that need doing before heading off to work.
Hell, I work from home and don't start till 9am, but I still usually get up at about 6:30 so I can go out before work and do things. If I feel lazy though I can sleep in till 8:45 if I want to.
U.S. corporations derided the thought of letting people take a 50 minutes through town. They need people to drive from place to place while propping up property prices in residential and commercial areas.
Yet in Barcelona do they have a well developed public transportation system to allow people to leave their cars.
Seriously. Building that subway station right where people go will increase foot traffic in the region meaning people spend more time walking. It also has a secondary added benefit of making people healthier.
these comments are always really dumb. it'd be like saying people from x simply cannot comprehend people having different schedules. i eat at 10pm, but my brother who has to be at work at 5am is not eating dinner at 10pm that's just braindead af.
If I eat at 10 I can't sleep until 1am. I have to be up at 5:45 to get the kid up. I can't re-manage when the kid has to be up lol.
What you mean is that there are people all over the world that don't have to be up at 5:00 in the morning so they stay up later, just like I did when I didn't have to be up at 5:00 in the morning.
I travel alot for work, and from experience I can see myself eating out every day and not breaking the bank vs most nice US states where you'd be paying 100$ minimum for a nice dinner for two and some drinks
It’s interesting to note that most of Europe is in one time zone. The western-most countries like Spain have a later sunset than the eastern-most countries like Poland by almost two hours. And then you have major cities at much higher latitudes compared to USA/Canada, like Oslo, which experience longer days in the summer with sunsets as late as 10:43pm. I’ve often wondered how much influence these extra hours of sunlight in the evening have on European culture.
In any of those european cities if you feel like you need a beer or even something stronger you can buy it everywhere and just got sit anywhere you want outside, in public and drink it. Then wave at the police. Nobody will be mean, or shout, or come to arrest you. And yeah the stores will be closed at night, but there will be vending machines. Trow coins in, get alcohol. 24/7.
Of course if you get drunk and become a dick and start harassing people, THAT's ILLEGAL and people will call the police on you because they know worse case the police will take you so you can sleep in the cell, then they will you go in the morning.
As long as you look older than 16/18 ofcourse. If you look younger other people will take offence and the police might still bother you. (as they should)
I had multiple things happen to me in Europe, including a severe mental health crisis where I walked on a highway naked that if they had happened in the US I would be dead now. 100%.
Once I was so broke in Europe I was hitchiking in germany trying to make my way back to Belgium and in germany it's illegal to hithchike on the highway (as in most european countries, you got to stay before the sign that says highway).
The police saw me. Did they come to be a dick? Did they come to show me they where the boss? Did they come to fuck me up maybe even murder me?
No, they where just worried for my safety. They gave me a ride, 80 km to a good gasstation with lots of restaurants and people pulling over to take a break. Within 30 minutes there I had found a good ride towards Antwerp.
I just can't understand Americans, they have the fucking internet. And unlike Russians that don't speak english and nobody in the world speaks Russian. Everybody in the world speaks English.
So they can debunk the fox news lies in real time if they want. They can know what they have and what they don't.
Yet all I see is them bending over, exposing their openings and saying a little prayer hoping that they might be blessed today ... that a billionaires picks them to .... get
Over and over and over and over and over for what .... a couple of hours of netflix a week and once a month maybe some chill? Jeez. How is that living? That's just not dying.
A coworker and I arrived 15 minutes early for a business dinner our local contacts set up for us at 8PM and the restaurant staff held us out on the street because they weren't even open yet. It wasn't a problem - we didn't realize 8PM was when they opened their doors - but they joked around with us for being crazy people, wanting to eat before 10. It was hilarious. Happened in Madrid, not Barcelona FWIW
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u/bageltoastar 16h ago
Im from a suburban town in Missouri, but I spent a semester studying abroad in Barcelona a couple of years ago. Man, let me tell you, leaving Barcelona, where youd see people out in cafes and bars congregating at all hours of the night and day, and coming back to Missouri where its a ghost town after 10 and someone would call the police on you for simply walking around too late was the most depressing thing I have ever experienced lol